Shingles is a painful disease. It takes more than a week to get over it and can leave pain after effects for a considerable period of time. In addition, it is usually related to beliefs that involve shamans and even death.
Adamari López decided to get vaccinated against a disease that, although common, causes a lot of discomfort and can appear in any part of the body. However, the driver and actress said she felt very bad after having injected herself. In a video that she posted on her social media, she stated that she had body pain, chills, and that she felt a certain temperature. “It’s a discomfort as if someone were going to get a cold from the cut body and what I want is to be snuggled up and calm.”
In addition to mentioning that he found it expensive, López said that he decided to get this vaccine as a precaution. “They say that after the age of 50 it is advisable to get that vaccine that also has the same active ingredients of chickenpox that I already had when I was younger”, and he is not wrong.
Herpes zoster, popularly known as shingles, is a viral infection that comes from the same virus as lechina or chickenpox. The Doctor Jorge Padilla, dermatologist doctor explains that once we suffer from chickenpox, the virus remains in our body inactive. However there are some events that can reactivate it.
“When it is reactivated, it does not give us lechina again but herpes zoster, or what they call shingles. In this case, shingles affects a nerve pathway. They are often nerves that are in the chest and these are not rectilinear but curved. If we see the lesion from a distance, it looks like a small snake, because it looks like waves, and that’s where its popular name comes from, ”he explains.
“When the nerves become infected they become inflamed and that causes intense pain with a burning sensation. It burns and it hurts. In addition, small vesicles appear that have a red inflamed background, and you may also experience some discomfort that could include fever. Now, shingles, like lechina, is self-limited. It means that it goes away on its own. On average, the disease lasts about 11 or 12 days and little by little the lesions dry up”.
In this sense, the doctor explains that the treatments that are prescribed are not to cure but so that the nerve deflates as quickly as possible, that it does not hurt or bother, in addition to preventing subsequent pain, which is what is known as postherpetic neuralgia.
safe vaccines
Though Adamari had side effects, generally these are usually mild or non-existent in most patients. The internist and infectologist Patricia Valenzuelaexplains that this type of vaccine produces adverse effects.
“Vaccines are effective and safe, and in this one specifically what is described are mild adverse effects, such as local pain at the injection site, and perhaps general malaise. Very little is reported by patients, but the most common is pain at the injection site. And it is that, in general, recombinant vaccines like this one produce few adverse effects”.
Vanezuela explains that the currently available herpes zoster vaccine is recombinant. “The great advantage is that it is not an attenuated virus, but rather proteins or parts of the virus that have been inactivated, that it does not replicate, with which It can also be administered to the vulnerable population, that is, to those compromised people who have a history of having suffered from herpes zoster or who are at risk because they are immunosuppressed, receiving chemotherapy or living with HIV AIDS. The previous vaccine excluded this type of patient”, he assures.
For over 50
The infectious disease doctor mentions that, as Adamari López said, This shingles vaccine is recommended for people over 50 years of age. “Even the recommendations of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP for its acronym in English), suggest that it be applied after 60 or 65 years of age. What happens is that after the age of 50, the immune system weakens due to aging and chronic conditions also appear.”
In addition, it is important to note that those patients who have already had chickenpox or chickenpox are precisely the ones who should receive this vaccine. “That is the patient who at age 50 has to get the recombinant varicella zoster vaccine because that is the one who can get shingles, that is, herpes zoster. In fact, in the United States the leading cause of absenteeism from work is postherpetic neuralgia, the pain that remains after infection.
Of witches and potions
This is a viral infection, like the coronavirus or chickenpox itself, and as previously stated, the body is responsible for fighting it. In this way it is unnecessary to resort to alternative treatments with concoctions and herbs that are very popular in these cases.
In some Latin American countries these alternative healing processes are customary, but the doctor Padilla ensures that they are not effective. “People say that you have to treat it with a sorcerer, but the truth is that the doctor does not cure it, nor does the sorcerer cure it. He heals himself. Our own body takes care of it.”
“The key to the supposed success of sorcerers lies in the number of days that the illness lasts: as has already been said, the illness lasts about 12 days. The patient turns to the shaman after about three days, when the burning vesicles appear. The sorcerer recommends praying a novena, which is nine days, or praying every three days. On the fourth day after visiting this specialist, the disease begins to diminish, with which the healing is attributed to the esoteric process.”.
Another myth that the doctor mentions is that when the two ends of the snake come together, the patient is at risk of death. Well this is true.
“Shingles is usually one-sided; not only in the chest; it can appear on the abdomen, on the face, on an arm, on a leg. If lesions begin to appear on the other side where they have already come from, it means that the patient is not defending himself adequately for some immunological reason. For example, immunosuppressed patients or patients undergoing cancer treatment. This means that the infection could spread and when this happens, it can cause a lung infection, pneumonitis and eczema herpeticum, which are lesions throughout the body and this can be fatal.
Finally, the doctor points out that, although there is no scientific evidence to prove it, it is noteworthy that after the coronavirus infection, some viral infections that had receded have reappeared. “I have seen in the last two years many cases of shingles and other viral skin diseases. It is possible that there is something related to covid-19 that could be sensitizing people to other viruses.
Given this scenario, there is no doubt that it is well worth following Adamari’s example if we are within the age range and under strict medical recommendation. A day of discomfort is preferable to suffering from this unpleasant disease.
YOU MAY ALSO LIKE:
Yalitza Aparicio and the injustice of having to give explanations for some photos in a bikini
Lyme, the disease that has turned Thalía’s life into a constant struggle
Foods that promote female intimate health (because hygiene is not enough)
ON VIDEO:
This way you can lower the glucose in your blood.
–
